| RALLY
NEWS NO.6
Carlisle Service/Saturday 4pm
UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 11
1st (5) Guy Wilks/Phil Pugh (Lancer N) 1.17.07.9
2nd (4) Gwyndaf Evans/Huw Lewis (Lancer N) 1.17.40.0
3rd (2) Mark Higgins/Rory Kennedy (Impreza N) 1.18.20.1
4th (1) Ryan Champion/Craig Thorley (Lancer N) 1.20.10.1
5th (10) Wyn Humphreys/Ally Mackay (Impreza N) 1.21.08.6
6th (12) Robert Swann/Darren Garrod (Impreza N) 1.21.35.2
7th (7) Conrad Rautenbach/David Senior (Citroen C2) 1.23.02.2
8th (14) Nick Kenny/George Gwynn (Impreza N) 1.25.06.1
9th (20) David Meredith/Jemma Bellingham (Lancer N) 1.26.15.7
10th (50) Rob Gill/Anders Howard (Lancer N) 1.27.48.3
On our last Rally News we mentioned that rally leader Guy Wilks
had a gearbox problem with his Lancer and when he arrived in here
to service Guy confirmed that, saying. “Yes, 3rd gear seems
to have gone completely, disappeared. When we changed from
2nd to 3rd two stages ago and I loaded it up it just went boomph.
I kept going at the same speed but always I was worried about the
box locking up completely. One of Guy’s engineers was
on hand and he was able to say that the best time the team has ever
achieved to change a gearbox was 23 minutes. They have 20 minutes
here. Second placed Gwyndaf Evans reflected on just how rough
the stages have become following the passage of so many cars.
Gwyndaf said. “Its not so much that we have eased back, more
a question of not attacking so hard, trying not to slide wide”.
Further news on Guy Wilks’ Lancer gearbox change – it
looks like the engineers got the job done on time and Guy has just
scraped into the service out control just 1 minute late which will
add 10s to his total time. Spectators watching the procedure gave
the team a great round of applause. Mark Higgins was in better
form this time than he had been earlier having had a good run over
the last few stages. He said. “The car is working well,
the team is doing a good job, we caught Ryan Champion on stage 10,
cost a few seconds but everything’s OK”. For his
part Ryan told us “I thought I had a puncture at the back
in stage 10, it went soft but seemed to stay that way for a few
miles, then the flailing started and for the last 3 miles I was
on the rim. At least it didn’t break up, some testimony to
“Wheels Dynamics”! Ryan went on to say that he’s
happy to settle for 4th now, he can’t make the car go any
faster.
Wyn Humphreys in 5th still had his differential problem when he
left service last time and then after a couple of stages the car
seemed to sort itself out of its own accord and he’s been
going really well through stages 10 and 11. Wyn is just 58s
behind Ryan Champion and is going to have a real go over the last
3 stages. Robert Swann rounds off the top 6 and he also has gone
well over the last few stages and was swapping tyres front to back
between tests. Further down the classification David Higgins
is almost unnoticed in 16th place in the new Toyota S2000 but David
is now setting times almost on a par with the fastest and said here
at service. “Yesterday was one of my worst day’s rallying
but today is great. This car is great fun, there’s a lot of
reward in it, its very interesting”. Seventh on the
leaderboard is Conrad Rautenbach, his Citroen really on the pace
through the last 4 stages which are twistier than the Pundershaw
tests. Conrad’s Citroen is chewing up the front tyres now
testimony to how hard he is working the little front wheel drive
machine.
Vesa Mikkola has dropped out of the leaderboard and is 11th now,
just ahead of Lorna Smith in the Suzuki. Vesa has a problem with
one of his Civic drive shafts. Lorna is taking things very steadily
and still intent on getting the Suzuki to the finish, her driving
much smoother now as she settles into the car. On our last Rally
News we mentioned that Connor McCloskey’s Lancer had stopped
500 yards into stage 9, it looks like he has definitely retired
and Darren Gass would appear to be running very late in his Fiesta
S1600 and indeed may be over maximum lateness which will leave just
20 cars in the International rally.
Earlier we reported that 21 year old Martin McCormack from Draperstown
in Northern Ireland had won the Historic Rally with his classic
Escort. On checking his times it would appear that his total
after 7 stages would have been good enough to place him around 8th
overall in the International. More news later. BRIAN &
LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
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